Minimum specs for a Sage TV client, media center type computer?

[coolred]

What would all of you think would be minimum specs for a rig to act as a sageTV client(I checked the sage site and got thier listed minimum requirments)DVD, Dvix player, MP3 streamer, all that kinda stuff.


I have an old duron 650 laying around, I know its capable of at least a bit more. I was planning on building an HTPC to host my multiple tuners for sage and the other stuff I mentioned. But now I am thinking I may just revamp my main rig and try and salvage some of these other parts for the client.

Like I said I have a duron 650 which I know will run on a 133Mhz bus, so its good to at least 866, maybe more. I would likely put it on the ECS K7S5A that is now in my main rig, couple it with like 256MB(more?)PC2100, my old 30gig hard drive and whatever else I can find or get cheap. SO do you think something like that would handle the tasks, easy enough?

That excedes the minimum requirments for sage, so thats not a problem, I would think the rest should be easy enough to as the video card will likely help with DVD playback, and mp3's aren't that processor intensive, the only thing I am not totally sure of is the divx, or maybe Xvid, not sure what I will use. How heavy of a load is that stuff?

 

[jdogg707]

Divx is pretty processor intensive, so your Duron might be able to make it, but I would sink the $40 into a 1.8GHZ Duron if I were you. I would try and get 512MB of RAM, but 256MB should be alright. If the hard drive is slow, you will most likely notice a slowdown, so 7200RPM is a must if possible. Also, if you are trying to stream data, a slow hard drive can sometimes cause issues. Now are you going to be using this machine to watch/record TV, or just a client to another machine with SageTV? If you are going to be using it to record TV, make sure you get a good TV tuner, like the Hauppauge PVR250, which has hardware MPEG2 support....this will greatly reduce the processor's role in converting the show to MPEG2 when recorded. If you are using it as a client machine, make sure you also have a nice fast LAN, at least 100MBps for video, or you may run into interruptions as well.

 

[coolred]

Yeah I had originally planned to make it the actual recordiing machine, but then I got the idea of using that old duron, if I did that I would likely have to make it a clinet, just feeding the TV from my main machien to it. I do already have a hauppauge PVR250(roslyn)card, plan to add more later. Everybody had been telling me to just use my current 2100+ in the HTPC/sage machine and then build a new main rig. But they I started looking at going with dual CPU's for my main rig. Since I already had the one 2100+, I figured I could add another for under 60.00 bucks and use them in an MPX board and then hopefully squeak by with the duron in the other machine. But your rigth I probablyl should use soemthing more powerful. I just figured why bother buying new stuff if I can get away with the old stuff.

 

[coolred]

Oh yeah my hard drive is 7200 RPM, so it should be fine.

 

[jdogg707]

IT really just depends on how much actual encoding you are looking to do, and how long you are willing to wait for it to get done. If you are going MP, make sure you use software that takes advantage of MP, or it will offer no real improvement for you.

 

[coolred]

I understand what your trying to say, but its not entirely accurate from what I have heard. Granted if all I am doing is encoding one movie and nothing else, then an MP system would be useless if not slightly less powerful then a single proc. But with a dual system, I could run 2 encoding apps at a time and encode 2 movies int he time it would normally take to do 1. Or I could encode and game at the same time. Now if I could just decide what parts to use.

 

[3chordcharlie]

If you want to encode, that system isn't even close - 2ghz athlon or 2.4ish P4 HT to encode single pass at even close to real-time, so whatever your goal is, you can use that as a starting point.

For playback, especially at 866, you shouldn't have any trouble. But you can get a much faster processor that will work in a K7s5a awful cheap, so it might be worth it.

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: coolred
I understand what your trying to say, but its not entirely accurate from what I have heard. Granted if all I am doing is encoding one movie and nothing else, then an MP system would be useless if not slightly less powerful then a single proc. But with a dual system, I could run 2 encoding apps at a time and encode 2 movies int he time it would normally take to do 1. Or I could encode and game at the same time. Now if I could just decide what parts to use.

What I was trying to explain was if you wanted to use both processors to encode one movie and get it done faster than if you were only dedicating it to a single processor.

 

[coolred]

No charlie, I don't plan to use this machine as the encoding machine, you must have either misunderstood me or not read all the posts. I am trying to deice if I should build a cheap light power client type of system, or build a mid range actual HTPC/Sage PVR box.

jdogg, I understand what your saying, I don't think i would be as worried abotu getting it done faster, as long as I could do soemthing else while its encoding.

 

[b0mbrman]

I wonder the same thing...I already have an XBox and cable box for braodcast tv, dvd's, and video games...but what would be the minimum I'd need in a computer that would just be used to play videos (divx and otherwise), mp3s, and other stuff like that?

...to be used in conjuction w/my tower ht speakers and projector (infocus x1)